American Latinos invade Hollywood. 'Bout time.

CRUISING WITH CORONA: Homeless and Greedy

March 1, 2010

I went to the store and this homeless guy asked me for some change.

“Prove you’re homeless first,” I said.

He crawled out from under his newspaper (the Homes for Sale section), climbed out of his cardboard box, tripped over his homeless sign, held out this doorknob hanging from the chain around his neck and said, “You see this doorknob?”

“Hell yeah. That’s a big ass doorknob.”

“It belonged to the house I lost,” he said.

“What about that window you’re holding up that you’re looking at me through? This ain’t Romper Room. Plus that bitch never saw no Mexicans.”

“It was my bedroom window,” he said, “I keep these for sentimental reasons.”

I windexed the window for him because it was hecka dirty and I could barely see him.

“You wanna see a picture of the house I was telling you about?” He asked.

I shrug, “Not really.”

He held out this picture of a cardboard box under a bridge.

“A box?” I asked.

“Oops, sorry. That was my third home before my current home. I’ve owned a two-story house and three cardboard houses.”

“Damn,” I said, “you’ve done well for yourself.”

“Thank you,” he replied.

Then he showed me this picture of a beautiful house, shed a tear and said, “That was home.”

A teardrop landed on the window.

“Man, I just windexed that, asshole.”

I wiped it real fast and gave him two dollars because that’s how big and beautiful my heart is. But you can’t take a picture of my heart because it wouldn’t fit in the picture, unlike his two-story house that fit.

“Can you buy me a forty?” He asked. “They won’t sell to me anymore.”

I did and was about to be on my way when he said, “A forty don’t cost two bucks. Where’s my change?”

I gave him his change, broke his window when he wasn’t looking and told him a burglar tried to break into his home.

Then I told him to get an alarm system and a watch dog for his backyard. I wanna see him drag around a backyard like he does that doorknob and that window.